Wednesday, December 19, 2007

I'm sitting here next to the men's room at the Las Vegas airport enjoying their free, but pretty sluggish Internet service. I may be too far from the hub to pick up the signal well. But this was the nearest place to my gate where I could find an electrical outlet. The Internet service at LAX is one of those you gotta pay $10 to use, so I never do. I suppose Las Vegas supports their free Internets with gambling and prostitution. But it's not like LA doesn't have plenty of money.

I'm waiting here to take a plane to Dallas, where my dad lives and then, from there drive with him to Knoxville where my sister lives. I'll be in Knoxville for about a week, then back to Dallas for a night, to LA for another night and then up to Tassajara for a few days R & R. Since none of the people who begged me to stay in LA offered me a place to crash while I'll be homeless for several days in between moves, I may stay up in San Francisco for the first week of Twenty-ought-eight.

Does anyone out there know Macs well? Since two days ago, my "Mail" program refuses to pick up about 90% of my mail. Not all of it, mind you. Just most of it. If I go to my .mac account on-line I'll have, say 12 messages. When I go to "Mail" I have, like 3 messages. The 3 that appear in "Mail" do not appear on-line, while the 12 that appear on-line do not show up in "Mail." This is becoming a huge problem. Guess I'll have to try one of them Apple Stores, but I doubt they have 'em in Knoxville. I tried checking my Preferences to see what's up there. But I didn't see anything wrong.

Also, thanks for the Bukowski poems. I'd never read him. He's pretty great, though. I'll have to read some more of his stuff. Plus he lived in Southern California. Maybe sane people do live there after all. Maybe I won't regret sticking around a little longer.

As for the vows of poverty taken by Buddhist monks, God I hate to burst people's bubbles (actually I love to), but here's what I've seen of this. Yes it's true that if you enter a Zen monastery in Japan you are allowed only the clothes you wear plus what you can fit in two back-pack sized things that are strapped to your shoulders, one hanging in front of your chest and the other on your back. The things inside these are strictly regulated. You can't just choose what you want. I don't know the list, but I know you get your three bowls, a razor, some underwear, maybe a toothbrush, your bedding and that's about it.

While you're at the monastery these are all you're allowed to possess. And you live on a square of tatami mat. All true. But, see, the thing is nobody lives their whole life like this anymore. It's like boot camp. You endure this for a period of several months and then go back home where your TV and DVD player, your PS3, your black leather pants and all the rest of it have been lovingly stored by mom and dad. Plus I have never been to a temple that didn't have all that kinda stuff and more for the monks and caretakers who lived there.

There may be countries where the poverty vows are taken more strictly than they are in Japan. But I kinda doubt it. My understanding of what goes on in Thailand, Tibet, China and Korea is that it's pretty much the same deal.

The training I had from Tim and from Nishijima Sensei just ignored the whole boot camp stuff and tried to instill a more evenly spread out habit of living less extravagantly. Still, as you've seen from my eBay auctions, I managed to amass a nice collection of junk. But, again, I don't know of a single Buddhist monk who doesn't have some similar vice. The difference is that their vices tend to be pretty modest. Tim's was a big collection of horror movies on VHS (don't know if he still has those). Nishijima lives amazingly modestly but he has a fairly extensive library of philosophy both Western and Eastern. Apparently Shunryu Suzuki had lots of pottery stuff.

In moving house recently I had to discard a whole lot of junk. It's absolutely incredible how much a person can acquire in a short time. But we live in a capitalist consumer-based economy. It is part of our duty to society, I think, to participate in a certain degree of consumption. This is not a bad thing in and of itself. But it can go too far very easily.

I think they might be calling my flight, so I'm signing off here. Bye!

171 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Happy travels to you. Hope the holidays with family pass well. There were several folk offering you an interim place to stay, I thought--one a spit in a high wind from the ocean!! Anyway be safe and thank you for the great blogs

Hi Brad, I checked the Apple>Support>discussions for .mac email problems, and Apple has said they have experienced email problems for several days and they will fix it ASAP. Whatever that means. It appears to have started on the 17th. You may want to try using the webmail option- I assume there is one but I don't use .mac. Hope this helps.

"Also, thanks for the Bukowski poems. I'd never read him. He's pretty great, though. I'll have to read some more of his stuff. Plus he lived in Southern California. Maybe sane people do live there after all."

Brad:

Bukowski said and did what he wanted, and didn't give a shit what others (the critics or sycophants) thought. Except for the alcohol consumption (and the carbuncles), you might not be that different from him.

It's just a little over the top for me... stinks of propaganda just a little... some of the facts seem a little fudged. But for the most part I agree with what she says.

On the other hand, I waited to watch it until after I'd finished my xmas shopping... I do love my STUFF. It's nice to have a reminder like this to be mindful about just exactly how much stuff you buy and throw away.

Bukowski was as scared as all of us.Bukowski did give a shit what people thought. Lookclosely and then look from a distance.

He was great writer.

He lived on the east side of L.A(hollywood) Sunset Western area. Used to be a dangerous place. The Pussycat Theater is long gone. . Stay away from the westside. Nothing there. Nothing much left on the east side. There's refuge in the barrio. Thats all thats left of good old L.A. or Maybe just East of Alvarado, it can be good at times.

Read: Ask the Dust by John Fante.

"drunk with the buddha" Charles Bukowski

the typewriter now hums and roars like an oldwashing machineas I sit in these green shorts on this hot summer nightwaiting on the luck:

I don't knowhow much more I can expect out of thismachine or out ofmebutwe continue to workknowing all about death and demisewe still search the walls for answers that will notarrive and

there is this small Buddhahesits on the deskacross from me and heappears to belaughing atme.

I attempt to readhim: it seems as if he was saying:our limitations are ourstrengths.leteverything elsego.

at their best, there is gentleness in Humanity.some understanding and, at times, acts ofcouragebut all in all it is a mass, a glob that doesn'thave too much.it is like a large animal deep in sleep andalmost nothing can awaken it.when activated it's best at brutality,selfishness, unjust judgments, murder.

what can we do with it, this Humanity?

nothing.

avoid the thing as much as possible.treat it as you would anything poisonous, viciousand mindless.but be careful. it has enacted laws to protectitself from you.it can kill you without cause.and to escape it you must be subtle.few escape.

it's up to you to figure a plan.

I have met nobody who has escaped.

I have met some of the great andfamous but they have not escapedfor they are only great and famous withinHumanity.

"It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?” - BUK

“Now, the original Beats, as much as they were knocked, had the Idea. But they were flanked and overwhelmed by fakes, guys with nicely clipped beards, lonely-hearts looking for free ass, limelighters, rhyming poets, homosexuals, bums, sightseers - the same thing that killed the Village. Art can’t operate in Crowds. Art does not belong at parties, nor does it belong at Inauguration Speeches.”

“Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.” - Buk

“There was nothing really as glorious as a good beer shit - I mean after drinking twenty or twenty-five beers the night before. The odor of a beer shit like that spread all around and stayed for a good hour-and-a-half. It made you realize that you were really alive.”

Bukowski died of leukemia on March 9, 1994, at the age of 73 and is buried in Green Hills Memorial Park, Palos Verdes, California. His epitaph? “Don’t Try.” Buddhist monks performed Bukowski’s funeral rites.

Advice in case anyone decides to do or at least try long term residential practice at any place that offers space for storage of large personal items:

Check with old timers and see if that is really secure or not.

Problem is, a large practice center has lots of people constantly coming and going, collecting thier stuff, depositing their stuff. Your own stuff may be grabbed and mistaken for someone else's and disappear.

See also if the storage place is water tight or gives signs of trouble with mold. You dont want to leave stuff long term in a place where it could be contaminated by allergens of that sort.

If you have anything really valuable, rent a top rated storage facility. Wallets and ID should be kept on you at all times. Regrettably an occasional troubled person floats through these places and has sticky fingers.

If you want sensitive stuff mailed to you that you dont want seen by the persons in the office (eg large checks), rent a PO box.

I don't know if people posting here are "adoring" or advocating his life style. He was a great writer, and I think they are showing their appreciation for that. As for his lifestyle, he dealt with his life in his own way.

"I get attacked far too often for my drinking and meat eating lifestyle..."

I've understood it as partly related to environment. In Tibet for example, it was traditionally hard to survive on a strictly vegetarian diet because of the lack of arable land for farming.

In Japan and China though there's lots of arable land so it is easy to not eat meat and be healthy.

To take this to its conclusion, in a world where now every conceivable type of food is available to the average westerner, I can't see any good reason to eat meat other than 'it tastes good'.

Another thought is it might be something to do with the fact that some buddhist schools didn't let the monks do any physical work and they had to beg for their food and accept what was put into their beggin bowl. If someone put some meat in it they would eat it because it was given to them.

So it's ok to eat roadkill or meat that is going to be thrown away anyway.

Bukowski was a substance abuser who could write very well. People can be complicated and have conflicting qualities. Things are never as black and white as some people (mysterioncough!) would have you believe.

"What if you needed meat to survive?Im not talking your lost in the woods and its you or the deer.

But more along the lines of, you need meat on a daily basis to survive.

Why?

Perhaps some mysterious digestive problems or a reaction againt something common in plants?"

It doesn't even have to be as hypothetical as digestive problems with plants. This is what I was getting at about Tibet. If there's no good farming land then not eating meat isn't really much of an option for a society of people who have grown beyond a certain density.

"What if you needed meat to survive?Im not talking your lost in the woods and its you or the deer.

But more along the lines of, you need meat on a daily basis to survive.

Why?

Perhaps some mysterious digestive problems or a reaction againt something common in plants?"

It doesn't even have to be as hypothetical as digestive problems with plants. This is what I was getting at about Tibet. If there's no good farming land then not eating meat isn't really much of an option for a society of people who have grown beyond a certain density.

"I'd like to draw a parallel. Allow me to present before you two scenarios of which I'd like you to judge which is worse.

A person keeps kosher. Only the strictest standard will do. He goes to his normal Glatt Kosher butcher shop and buys a piece of meat. The butcher earlier that day had a visit from another neighborhood butcher that wasn't kosher. He had surplus meat was wiling to sell it to the kosher butcher for a fraction of the price. The kosher butcher couldn't resist and bought it. Our glatt kosher consumer ate trief.

Scenario two. A kosher keeping Jew slips down a few rungs and decides he's going to have some trief. He randomly gets off the bus in China Town walks into the first butcher shop and buys 2 pounds of felanken. Little does he realize that earlier in the day the Chinaman got a great deal from the kosher butcher who wanted to leave for the mountains and so sold him his inventory for a fraction of the price. Our traifenyack had a glatt kosher dinner.

Which is worse? He who did the sin but didn't want to, or he who wanted to but didn't sin? Says the Gemara in Sanhedrin as the Maharsha explains it "Hirhurei Averia kashin MeAveira," the though of sin is worse than the sin itself. One, says the Maharsha, is a function of one's actions and one is a function of the heart. A sin of the heart is much worse for although the heart's wish has not been fulfilled, the wish served the purpose of defining what I am. As much as the Torah is concerned with what I do, it is much more concerned with what I am."

Now wait 1/2 a moment while I 'do guilt.' O.K., I did guilt. I'm over it, are you? In Zen, one moment has little/nothing to do with the next or last.

Anyone/everyone can change (or change back) in a moment and Zen (being about self control alone) is about detaching from past baggage and 'movin' on.' Even if you had a beef burger for lunch today, you can choose a vegie burger for lunch tomorrow. Furthermore, as you advance in Zen, you may discover that future/past are equally irrelevant.

This sermonette available in print for 25¢ in cash, stamps, or coin from the corner monk. Batteries not included, mileage may vary.

Yo Brad.. You ought to set up a PAYPAL cyber begging bowl atop your blog. It is a pretty passive way to let people help you out with your Hill Street bills. The Clear Mind Zen guy has one set up on his blog. It's a good idea.

Brad, if you're still having email problems, try "Mailbox=>Rebuild" on the Mail.app menu. Can't promise this will fix the problem, but sometimes the mail index gets wonky* if Mail doesn't shut down cleanly.

Mysterion................you said; "A one with great pain does NOT have the right to shoot oneself. One is just imposing upon another the cleaning up a mess."

If a person lives long enough, he/she's gonna be making lots of messes for lots of others to clean up. Ever visit a nursing home?? A quick suicide just leaves one mess. True, it is a big one, but it is just one. But there are usually better options out there.

You pompous fucking asshole hypocrite. You eat veal, and you talk about "respect for the poor animal" and post Thich Nhat Hanh's writing on Reverence for Life. What an asshole.

You are so full of shit, you fat bastard. Go to freerice.com and spend some time there rather than posting your bullshit and links here. At least you will be helping feed people, rather than stuffing your fat face with baby calves and bragging about it on this blog.

Veal is easily the most wrong of all the meats. Apart from that thing the chinese do where they cut open the heads of monkeys and eat their brains while the monkeys are still alive. That's kind of in a league of its own as far as fucked up meat fetishes go.

I personally can't think of one moral or health related argument for eating any meat.

There are maybe a few health related arguments for eating fish but even that is not entirely clear since there's a lot of bullshit out there about that.

I think of meat the way I think of chocolate bars or crisps (potatoe chips for the yanks). There's no good reason to eat that crap other than the fact that it tastes good.

IF any of you guys would get away from the moral issues associated with meat eating for one moment and look at how the human body is designed you wouldn't be saying the shit you're saying. Go read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.

"You pompous fucking asshole hypocrite. You eat veal, and you talk about "respect for the poor animal" and post Thich Nhat Hanh's writing on Reverence for Life. What an asshole." (and much more)

If I can chose between being a bad-tempered, agressive, deluded, do-gooder vegan terrorist or a tolerant, realistic, not-too-perfect, loving, caring, immature meat consumer... Well, what should I chose?

Why are 95% of vegans/vegetarians extremely agressive and ignorant? I am serious: I was vegetarian when I was 16-18 but the dogmatic scene made me stop it.

Most religious vegetarians made it like that: There are several rules, like not talking about bad other people, not lying, not being angry, not being jealous. They are hard to follow, so I chose the easy stuff: No Alcohol and Vegetarianism. Then they go out and attack anybody who does not obey their "favorite" rules. Happened very often to me.

Seriously, it's so easy to just NOT DO something to save the world. How about DOING something beside hating each other?

If I only understand a grain of Buddhist teaching, it's not the basic idea to hate anyone for anything in the first place.

gerry gomez appears to be a strange person... first he admires bukowski for saying what he want without caring about others and then attacks mysterion without any modesty.

do vegetarians have nothing to offer but shock videos, shock videos, and even more shock videos?

i have seen animals (chicken and rabbits) getting slaughtered, so no new point. i know friends from farms.

so besides the shock effect, and some agression, what do you offer but that?

its just that you think when you see this you automatically have to think that it is wrong. bad treatment of animals is wrong. killing animals is probably to be avoided. but its no idea you are born with.

but convincing people with insulting them and shocking them alone is too simple imho. like some buddhist scriptures where they only pretend you stink when you eat meat and you will be reborn in low states (often dogmatic inserts by hypocrites i think).

i am a veggie myself, but when i see those fundamentalists standind in front of mcdonalds shouting at people i am not sure anymore who has the problem here.

even worse when vegans attack me for milk consumption or fruitans attack vegans for eating whole plants and anorectics attack people for eating at all. where is this all heading to? is there nothing more important to care about?

"This was not said in anger. I was describing mysterion, and I think it is spot on. "

If you had just described or adressed him, you could have said:

"I see major contradiction within your statements, and I thought you should clear up how you meant it. I feel estranged and irritated and it adds to my already existing irritation about your appearance."

Swearing is not even slightly more precise.

*sogh*

Yeah, we had this on this blog before, too often. The self-indulgence of guys like Mr Gomez:

"I can post agressive thoughts on my pc and pretend I am not agressive because I am so enlightened. I am just not used anymore to the reaction of lower state beings and their interpretation of my alleged agression. I am so realized I can't even care about your inferior mental states. If you only knew how good it is being soooo unaattached. But I am too unwordly to even care about what bad moods and temper I cause, because that is the only point of Buddhist pratice! My bad conditioning, it's none of your business!"

Yes, fool yourself. It's not a problem to be aggresive once in a while. It's natural. Denying it, well that sounds like a major problem to me.

I was attending a Birthday party for my then four-year old niece, when she suddenly came back into the clubhouse where the party was being held, sobbing uncontrollably. With some difficulty because she could hardly get her breath from crying so hard, she told us why she was upset. A couple of the other little girls at the party were outside the clubhouse playing with a lightning bug they had trapped inside a cup. My niece kept crying that the bug couldn't breathe, and begging her Mom to please ask the girls to let the bug out of the cup.

I'm not telling this story of a crying child in an effort to elicit sympathy; I'm hoping, instead, it will help to illustrate that some people just naturally (whether or not they want to) feel great empathy for the suffering of other living beings. She was not trained to feel this way, nor did she have some carefully crafted agenda. She was simply a child feeling deep pain because she thought a little bug might be suffering and dying at her party. I relate to this feeling. I wish I didn't.

Brad, check out the fairly new Bukowski doc "born into this." Very worthy. You might look into one of Buuk's main party bros, also; Jesse Bernstein (called Stephen Jesse Bernstein often) most available book is probably "I am secretly an important man." Jesse was a boddisatva. You wouldn't of known it meeting him. But he was. Have a grooving motor trip, holidays etc. Thanks for your, er...work.

Eat meat if you want to eat meat. If you don't feel bad, good for you. If you don't know whether or not you should eat meat, look to the precepts. If you know you shouldn't eat meat, then you shouldn't eat meat.

Using words like 'Abscheulichkeit' and saying 'I eat Kalbfleisch (Calf Flesh = veal)' are inflammatory but a lot easier than being judgmental of people who are in situations with which I am not familiar. I subscribe to no factory farm (actually 'ranch') or flesh foods.

Before he died, Socrates spoke his last words to Crito saying, "Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt." Asclepius was the Greek god for curing illness, and it is likely that Socrates' last words were implied to mean that death is the cure for living.

To "understand" cycle of life, rebirth, life and death, turning of the dharma wheel and such I suggest to first investigate what your alleged life really IS. What birth IS. What death IS. You may or may not find out what that is for you and may or may not observe how that happens, which condition it might trigger.

Hint: It doesn't mean someone's asshole ego personality is warped from one brain with limbs to another brain with libms. No. It's not meant literal. Heyven is here. Hell is here. Everything is here.

Your statement is hurting my feelings. It is making me feel estranged and irritated, espcially since you ignored that it was in quotes and that I referenced the source. I am feeling like you don't care for me.

Clearly you hold mysterion in high regard, providing him with light bulb jokes and all.

jinzang - eating an infant mammal that has never seen the light of day sure seems like an depraved act. at least as evil as putting two dogs together to fight. BUT, I wasn't entirely serious with that post. It came into my head from watching Vick in the football video you linked to. I should have thrown in a smiley to let people know I was just funning about the great man's cruelty.

They do not live in the world,Are not in time and space.From birth to death hurledNo word do they have, not oneTo plant a foot upon,Were never in any place.

For with names the world was calledOut of the empty air,With names was built and walled,Line and circle and square,Dust and emerald;Snatched from deceiving deathBy the articulate breath.

But these have never trodTwice the familiar track,Never never turned backInto the memoried day.All is new and nearIn the unchanging HereOf the fifth great day of God,That shall remain the same,Never shall pass away.

"Your statement is hurting my feelings. It is making me feel estranged and irritated, espcially since you ignored that it was in quotes and that I referenced the source. I am feeling like you don't care for me."

If your sarcasm wouldn't be as superficial and moping I would even care more for you.

I am sorry it was not possible to make my point really clear. I regret my capabilities are limited.

I do not hold Mysterion in high regard. He is a nice teddy regular, but gets over the top with his theories for me. I do love him though, just as I love you, too.

You can post in any manner you like to I guess and we can react. The theoretical censorship would be Brad as it is his blog, but I assume he is at least slightly amused and does normally never interfere.

Would you feed your dog or cat a 100% vegetarian diet? We live in a world where life feeds on life. It's just a fact, though an unpleasant one. I think sometimes Buddhists neglect being compassionate towards the omnivorous ape that we are each responsible for.

I've personally swung back and forth on this issue. I used to say that I would only eat meat I'd killed myself. I didn't think death should be hidden away in the meat processing plants.

On the other hand, I'm not going to feed my dog a vegetarian diet. Should I make him kill his own meals? That seems like it would be much more cruel than the quick death promised by a butcher.

What changed my mind was when I started taking my health and physical fitness more seriously. I made zero progress for three or four months of regular exercise. I was eating plenty of vegetables, beans and rice, soybean products, wheat gluten sausages, etc. but these all contain quite a bit less protein than meat does. Then I started drinking protein supplement shakes. My body soaked them up like a sponge, and the difference in my health, my energy level, and my muscles was plainly visible in TWO WEEKS. My body must have been starving for protein to respond so quickly.

Now I eat meat again, because MY body obviously needs more protein than I can get on a vegetarian diet. Drinking one or two protein supplement shakes a day was not indefinitely sustainable (barf).

Make sure that omnivorous ape gets plenty of exercise. Make sure it gets enough protein to be healthy. Then, if it's possible to do so without damaging its health, try to reduce the impact its food choices have on the rest of the world. A wonderful book on the subject of low-impact diet is The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

we are killing creatures by nature. life feeds on life undeniably. But don't eat mysterion just because he is annoying. he has many good qualities also. besides, he is old and probably tough to chew. :)

"If your sarcasm wouldn't be as superficial and moping I would even care more for you."

Wow, you're so generous.

I do see a major contradiction within your statement, and I thought you should clear up how you meant it. I feel estranged and irritated that you are limiting yourself by not carry more about me; not very Buddhist of you. And I want you to make me feel all warm and loved (you say you love me*, but your carefully measured statement says otherwise--don't deny it, because that will sound like a major problem to me), so I can learn to present as a nice teddy regular too.

*You say you love meAnd you're thinkin' of meBut you know you could be wrong.Dylan, for you and msyterion

Gerry Gomez said...gunderloy:"Show reverence for mysterion's words.He is all knowing, and we are not worthy."

You are all worthy (having a bodhi nature) and I have learned how really little I know after scratching the surface for the last 43 years. I apologize for not sending you to my profile first and asking you to read my favorite book - the true and inspired words of the gods as revealed through Harry Frankfurt.

Not quite everything I post is bullshit - but it is up to you to choose the filter floss. I would hope that I increase skepticism in general as well as your skepticism of me. The world of religions is a world of dung heaps upon bullshit.

I really don't amount to a hill o' coffee beans or a tiny pile of dung in any world, let alone this one. Like one pile of dung, I would only aspire to briefly hiding two coppers.

Suzuki Roshi came to my house in Redwood City for meetings for a few months. On one occasion, he left his small emblematic stick. I thought that he might want it before the Sunday meeting in San Francisco, so I stopped by the Temple (then on Bush Street) to leave it.

He was there and when I handed it to him, I asked what the Japanese characters on it meant. "Whatever you say is not the truth," he replied. Thinking that he had misunderstood me, I repeated the question, with the same result. I thought, silently, how true that is.

(I think that I was fortunate to have many teachers who, beyond impression, imprinted me.)

Shit! How'd I miss all this good Mysterion-smashing! Fuckall i leave for a couple of days to sit and miss all the goodstuffssss. Did mysterion ever answer Marty's question? Did he ever form his own creepy little cult? I must know!

Anonymous said..."somehow I don't think Suzuki meant that as a cop out."

He didn't. He was translating the Kanji on the kyosaku. In traditions other than Soto Zen, the Keisaku may have a different 'saying.' This is the saying by which the monk is expected to remain grounded.

jules. It's a common myth that humans need lots of protein hence need lots of meat.

we actually dont need that much protein at all.

It is much more likely that what your body was lacking was the vitamins and minerals like b12 and thiamin and iron that are present in meat but harder to get from a strict vegetarian diet. The shakes you were drinking were probably loaded with those aforementioned minerals and vitamins and that's why you noticed the difference.

I take responsibility for everything I say. Fuck all ya'll. Got a problem with that? Huh? If so, come kick my ass down at the Hill Street Center tomorrow morning at 0945 where a few of us will be sitting zazen while Daddy's out of town.

If you're a pipe-swingin' Hell's Angel ex-con with anger issues I sincerely apologize and hope my poor attempt at humor in no way offended your sensibilities. My bad.

Well Rob, if I see a whole hive of motorcycles in the parking lot and a bunch of workboots stacked up outside the door, a pile of fringed leather jackets and all on the chairs on the porch and bearded men with dark glasses, bandanas and tatts sitting full lotusI'll know I'm where hardcore zen is at!!! I'm going to try a persimmon cake receipe (I've got all these persimmons someone gave me dontchaknow.Do Angels drink tea with their pinkys up?We'll find out in about 13.5 hours!

is there anyone really good at economics who could explain what would happen if people, in a country like US or UK, reduced their consumption habits to the very basic stuff - in other words stopped consuming a lot, stopped shopping a lot, give up cars, traveling on holidays etc? I am afraid it would lead to HUGE economic problems of the country that would lead to almost a chaos and the country would not have money to support various social programs, but i am not sure

anyway, that is probably the Point Brad makes when saying we have "obligations to consume"

Oh okay Dan your right thanks for clearing that up for us! I guess after 10 thousand years of evolution I still don't understand my body at all. People should be very careful of trying replace there normal diets and supplementing there own diets with Iron and other such minerals.

Better do blood work before you run out to the local health store.Can fuck your brain chemistry really really good. Takes much longer to fix those problems.

I post a question.How do you feel about sarcasm?What is it? I've been told that I don't understand it?That it's a higher function of the brain. ? Really?Who says that and how do they know? Sometimes I see what I believe to be sarcastic humorand I laugh. Example: John Stewart, Andy Kaufman, Bill Murray.Sometimes I find it not funny . Example:David Cross,Chris Elliot, Sean Hannity.Is there a fine line between sarcastic humor and sadism?Just because one doesn't find it funny doesn't mean that one doesn't get it.Does sarcasm have to funny? Are there rules Zen Sarcasm?1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire.

3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

4. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

The vast sanctuary, abandoned for centuries. Venerable Dr. Mysterion in his blood splattered robes. Offering incense and burning 2500 Bob Dylan vinyls on a pile of ground veal, higher than mount Sumeru. He chants random conspiracy URLs and the infamous black and white paparazzi Gerry Gomez writes 5000 four letter words on the ground without any emotional involvement.

The Holy Brad Warner approaches the scenery, followed by 10000 trucks full of Japanese 1970s action figures he is going to ebay. He hits everyone with his Kyosaku and recites The Smiths lyrics in rage that is really not rage. He suddenly transforms into Godzilla and enlightens the masses of fanboys.

Aumeye and the 25000 Suicide Girls appear and perform some sexy but clothed Wicca dance. Steve Jobs turns off Brad's MacMail account to make him no longer spread wisdom and prints out all of the world's spam mail that was sent in the last decade. And he reads it out aloud and cares about the penile issues.

Smoggyrob and Jinzang beat and injure Jared using a Christmas tree because they refuse to accept that "Tall" is the smallest coffee while "Venti" is the largest. Their affection becomes boundless and they all solve 50000 Koans in one second.

All of Denmark's Hell's Angels members arrive with their motorcycles and convert to Buddhism. They offer 100000 Dimentia 13 CDs to the gods and get instantly enlightened.

Charles Bukowski and the Dalai Lama meet with the Beastie Boys and tell each other 250000 light bulb jokes. World suffering ends.

Most of the world's poor people are still rural, eat mainly seed derived protein-with useful additions from small amounts of fish, mollusk, meat, egg, vegetables and roots-and, except for illness derived from smoking, rarely show symptoms of degenerative disease. They eat closest to a 'human natural diet'. - "What is the Healthiest Diet for the Human Animal? "

I post a question.How do you feel about sarcasm?What is it? I've been told that I don't understand it?That it's a higher function of the brain. ? Really?Who says that and how do they know? Sometimes I see what I believe to be sarcastic humorand I laugh. Example: John Stewart, Andy Kaufman, Bill Murray.Sometimes I find it not funny . Example:David Cross,Chris Elliot, Sean Hannity.Is there a fine line between sarcastic humor and sadism?Just because one doesn't find it funny doesn't mean that one doesn't get it.Does sarcasm have to funny? Are there rules Zen Sarcasm?1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire.

3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

4. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

i eat way more than that a day so i get too much protein anyway and remember 85kg is average weight for an adult male in the USA (remember that's cos you're all fat though. I dont know how body fat percentage fits into thwe whole protein requirement thing but my guess is that if you weigh 85kg but a lot of it is fat then you wont need as much protein as the figures i used above. Maybe not though.)

Sarcasm. A form of verbal irony, expressing sneering, personal disapproval in the guise of praise. (Oddly enough, sarcastic remarks are often used between friends, perhaps as a somewhat perverse demonstration of the strength of the bond--only a good friend could say this without hurting the other's feelings, or at least without excessively damaging the relationship, since feelings are often hurt in spite of a close relationship. If you drop your lunch tray and a stranger says, "Well, that was really intelligent," that's sarcasm. If your girlfriend or boyfriend says it, that's love--I think.)

LOVED the dream!I love all you quirky and sigularly peculiar sillies and not-so so and sos here at Hardcore: the more regular than thou posters and the once in a great while and the one time onlysI love you allThank you, thank you for a wonderful place to come, and spend a little moment.It's a ward I could live on!Be well

Dan wrote: The general consensus is 0.8g of protein per kilogram is what is needed.

Hi Dan,I was vegetarian for seven years. I took a multivitamin designed for vegetarians every day.

A sedentary person could survive on .08g/kg without suffering negative symptoms. How athletic are you? It didn't work for me. I need more like 150g per day, and if I get all that protein from vegetarian sources, it's too much food, I couldn't eat it all. If I forced myself to eat it all, I'd get fat.

Please keep in mind that we're not all built the same, either. For example, Eskimos can get 90% of their calories from animal fat and still have no significant problems with heart disease. Maybe some people need more protein than others.

It didn't work for me. I was unhealthy on a vegetarian diet. I was weak, had low energy, and often got candida rashes. I know other vegetarians who get the same rashes and/or IBS.

Giving up on vegetarianism was difficult for me. If there was a simple answer I would have tried it. I finally came to the conclusion that my body needed meat. Rashes haven't returned, and I'm just a lot healthier overall.

You didn't answer my original question: would you feed a carnivorous animal a 100% vegetarian diet?

Ice: good to hear from you. Had I claimed to have arrived at the great 'here and now' I would have discredited Shakyamuni. THAT, I will not do. Instead of saying "let he who has ears listen," Buddhists say: 'This, I have heard' thereby avoiding the placing of a burden upon the listener.

Let's see... Xmas shopping? LOL, I had none in the past, have none in the present, and will have none in the future.

I have a very active lifestyle and as i said i eat more thawn 0.8 per kg. my point was for the average person its 0.8. apparently for atheletes its more like 1.2 - 1.8g depending on the sport. so for an 85kg athelete it would be around 125g a day. 150g of protein is the kind of figure they recommend on bodybuilding websites (i used to be into bodybuilding rather embarassingly) so unless you are doing some serious strength training that sounds a little high.

but I guess that you're right: people are different. If it really was messing you up then fine i suppose. however, I recently found out that there are lots of different proteins and vegetables tend to only have one or two of them so you have to make sure you are getting all the right kinds. meat has all of them in one source so that could be why you felt like crap because you weren't getting enough of a certain kind of protein from the vegetarian diet you were eating.

i still hold that the vast majority of people need way less protein than they think they need though. especially since most people dont lead very active lifestyles.

"You didn't answer my original question: would you feed a carnivorous animal a 100% vegetarian diet?"

sorry i forgot.dogs are omnivores so i would have no qualms about feeding a dog a vegetarian diet. i've never owned a dog though but if it started looking fucked then i would feed it meat. i'm not a hardcore vegan nazi or anything. it's ok to eat fish for example because they don't have any feelings... (who will be the first to get it?)

My point was just that most people could very easily be vegetarians and cut out meat altogether if they just paid a little more attention to what they ate.

cats are carnivores so it would obviously be cruel to feed it a vegetarian diet and i feed my cat kitty crunchies that are made from meat.

also, about your special multi vitamin. I've heard that vitamin pills are uselss and you just piss out most of it anyway because you're body cant absorb most vitamins when they're in that form. So that's another possibility.

This vegetarian thing kind of reminds me of the whole sitting in lotus thing.

For the vast majority there is no real reason why they cant but for a few there will always be real medical issues that prevent them from doing so.

in the same way for the vast majority, most people could easily, i believe, cut out meat altogether but there will always be a few (like you maybe jules) who genuinely cant due to the way their body is.

the problem is that people take these rare cases and then somehow brainfart their way into making themselves believe that this means that THEY as perfectly healthy average human beings are somehow incapable of sitting lotus or not eating hamburgers everyday.

what would happen if people, in a country like US or UK, reduced their consumption habits to the very basic stuff - in other words stopped consuming a lot, stopped shopping a lot, give up cars, traveling on holidays etc? I am afraid it would lead to HUGE economic problems.

Only Keishin and I showed up at HSC today, you bitches. Now, while I would never beat Jared*, his employer can kiss my ass. I hate that fuckin' place, their stupid sizes, their crappy coffee, and (in LA at least) all the screenplay writing jackasses giggling at their own cleverness. They should take a hint fom Idiocracy and become brothels.

My wife loves the place, naturally. We used to stop at this Starbucks every Saturday on our way out and about. I'd run to the 7/11 next door and buy this HUGE coffee and then go back. As I walked through the SB back to the wife, if anyone looked at the 7/11-emblazoned coffee bucket I was carrying, I'd look at them and say (loudly) "Buck twenty-nine!" Oh, it was exquisite, street art even. I'll take my memories of their faces to the grave.

no Angels, Hell's or otherwheresthe persimmon cake was a flop--maybe somebody here has a better receipe to share (I'm counting on mysterion to come through with links to the best persimmon cake receipe ever)Oh, vell, vhat you goin to du?

Rob very politely finished his piece (he did not ask for seconds).Rob-thanks for the kick-ass coaching with regard to the work scene (the bastards).

Your Mom is every Christmas ribbon she has ever bought and every bow she has ever tied. Christmas is in every and between every cell--you can not take Christmas out of her, even if she's not 'feeling' it this year. There were years when I was so busy 'doing' Christmas, I wasn't able to 'receive' it. I found when I didn't get out the lights, etc. I noticed/appreciated more the stuff other people had out.Just some beautiful flowers, some candles--leave the boxes and all that tissue paper wrapped decorations for another year.

I am no Mysterion disciple. The whole idea of master/disciple in Buddhism is born in ancient patriarch societies. Everyone should inspire each other and remind us of our limitation and non-limitations. And share some time and tea. We are social beings after all. GET YOUR ASS OUTTA THAT FUCKING CAVE, SIDHARTHA!

The infamous Buddha Bar chill-out sampler series, I have some of those kitsch main-stream things as well. Claude Challe actually appears to be Buddhist, quote from his CD:

I can't imagine this. My old zen group was located in a small city (less than 100K) in the rural south. We had no leader. We met at 5 am three times per week and sat zazen for 2 hours (3 35min rounds) each day. We held all-day sittings (10 hours) and often had over 20 people in attendance at these events. This was in the 70's. WTF has happened to zen these days?

People are going off on various paths - trying to stay alive, working two jobs where they are able to find 2. Many are distracted by who-knows-what (playstation?) but Zen is just fine. To zoom back a little, Buddhism has survived both Christianity and Islam so Zen will certainly pass through this time - alive and well.

To quote Dan Quayle: "The duties (of vice president) can be summed up in one word - be prepared."

Unless it's a homeopathic remedy 'made' from coffee right? I guess that would make a good sleeping pill.

My father used to drink a cup of coffee before going to bed. "It helps me sleep," he said. "How can you drink coffee in the morning to wake up and at night to sleep?," I asked. "It's magic," he replied.

As someone who switched to a vegetarian diet a couple of years back I did some research, got myself a good vegetarian cookbook with a section on what to eat (including which types of food to mix together to get the proteins etc).

If you are taking vitamin pills then you are probably not eating a varied enough mix of food. The human body does not process vitamins from pills very efficiently at all, and really they are a huge waste of money.

Just look around any street in the western world and I suspect you will see the end result of too much consumption.